The adventures of Matt & Amy

Our puzzle obsession

2011-01-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Matt and I have had an obsession lately. I gave him a puzzle for Christmas of the famous Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria, Germany. We visited this castle a couple years ago so I thought this would bring back some memories. I didn’t realize when I bought the puzzle that it contained 2000 pieces. Yes, 2000 pieces. This is the biggest puzzle I’ve ever seen. Three weeks ago we dumped the pieces on the kitchen table and tried to “organize” them. We have a decent sized kitchen table, but it was barely large enough to hold all the pieces, let alone try to organize them and still leave room to assemble the puzzle. Even though it was a difficult puzzle to assemble, each evening we would find ourselves glued to the table for a few hours. After a few days we both commented to each other that we were experiencing eye strain so we decided it would be best to take a night off. It was not easy. Each time we would walk by the table we noticed the lonely pieces scattered about the table just waiting to be put in their place. We couldn’t resist. We found some nice lubricating eye drops and gave in to the puzzle. The next day we both commented to each other that our backs hurt from bending over the table. We thought it would be a good idea to take a day off and give our backs some rest. That didn’t last long either. We were right back at the table. I don’t know what it was about this puzzle, but we couldn’t peel our eyes away from it. It became our obsession until last night when Matt found the last piece. It was a liberating moment for us. One that I don’t want to repeat for a long time!

Happy Birthday to Matt

2010-12-20T09:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to Matt! He turned 40 last Friday and to celebrate I made him a special “Over the Hill” cake. Some people will say you’re not “Over the Hill” until you turn 50, but I just had to tease him a little. I decided to turn the cake into a snowboarder going “downhill”. It’s hard to see the details from this picture, but you get the idea. The snowboarder is really him!

In honor of Matt, here are just a few of the qualities I love most about him.

He has a calm demeanor
He is a very kind person (I can’t recall him ever saying anything bad about anybody)
He is very intelligent (I love that he refers to himself as “An encyclopedia of useless information)
He is humble
He is quick to forgive

Greek Festival 2010

2010-09-22T10:39:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago was the 35th annual Greek Festival in Salt Lake City. Each year my family attends the festival to partake of the delicious food and watch the folk dancing. Matt wasn't able to join us this year, but that's okay because he was with us for the one last year........the real one.

The food was yummy, as always. I think my favorite dish is the Pastitsio. A close second is the Loukamades. Here are some pictures from this year's festival.

Dane and Justin eating dolmathes.

Asher eating a meatball. He loved them and ate a total of 3 (they're quite big).

I think this was Dane's reaction to trying his first Greek olive. Not a fan!

Mom and Liz (Sheldon's girlfriend) sharing some Greek beef stew.

Christina talking to our cousin Jason.

Dad holding little Sawyer. Jason's daughter Baylee is "helping".

Asher wearing a Germany shirt at the Greek festival.

This one's my favorite. Asher crawling up the steps to the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Millers at the Middle

2010-09-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Matt and I decided to take a spontaneous trip over Labor Day weekend to the Tetons. It should be obvious by now that we love this place! It seems that every time we go there we end up hiking the same trails, not that there's anything wrong with that. All the trails there are beautiful. This time we decided to hike on a trail that we haven't been on in a while: the Garnet Canyon trail. This is the route hikers take if they are climbing the Middle or Grand Teton. We decided to hike until we got to the bottom of the Middle Teton. The views are amazing! Now you can see why this place keeps drawing us back every year.

After hiking through the trees for a couple hours, we came around the corner to this view.

At the base of the Middle Teton....so close!

Matt demonstrating his spectacular rock-skipping skills.

Element

2010-08-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you’re fishing and a buffalo starts to cross the river next to you?
If you’re Matt, you ignore it and continue fishing. If you’re Amy, you quickly snap a picture and really, really hope it keeps moving opposite your direction.

I like this picture of Matt. He is in his element. He is doing the one activity he truly enjoys and nothing will bother him, not even a buffalo. I tried my hand at fly fishing and actually picked it up fairly well even though I didn’t catch any fish. Matt caught about a dozen. Quantity didn’t matter. It was a great feeling to be outside in such a beautiful area (Yellowstone National Park), see a buffalo cross the river, look at the pretty wildflowers, and enjoy wading in the coolness of the river. So I guess you can say that I, too, was in my element.

Welcome to the family!

2010-07-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the newest member of the Kargis family.

Congratulations to Justin and Tina.

Born yesterday, July19th, at 5:05pm. As of right now, he doesn't have a name yet.

Isn't he precious?

Perfect in every way.

Life Elevated

2010-07-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago Utah's motto changed from "The greatest snow on earth" (which I won't argue with) to the new motto:

I realized how fitting that motto is last night when Matt and I were on a hike and came upon this view.

We live in a beautiful state!

oh, to be a famous tree

2010-03-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture I took of the famous "Lone Cypress Tree". It is located on 17 mile drive near Pebble Beach, California. It is around 250 years old.

I'd like to look this good at 250.

I love food!

2010-03-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

I know of a few places that I would travel to just to eat the food.

1) St Johann, Austria - the fabulous restaurant located next to the Alpenland hotel. It's just so fabulous that I can't remember the name at the moment. Trust me folks, it's good.

2) The waffle stands in Brugge, Belgium.

3) Mike's Pastry in Boston, Mass. Thanks to my friend, Jen, who told me about this place.

4) Any relative's home in Greece.

5) Leek's Pizza in the Grand Teton National Park. The best pizza and garlic bread (Teton Bread)I've ever had.

The food from these places has become the topic of conversation on many occasions. I love food and love talking about it. My brother in law jokes that my sister and I always talk about food. It's true. It's almost as good as eating it. Well, not quite.

But today I want to highlight my favorite restaurant in Salt Lake City. It's called Mazza and they serve Middle Eastern cuisine. The man who owns it is from Lebanon so he adds a Lebanese flair to the food. If I ever move from Salt Lake City, this is the place I want to eat when I come back to visit.

Here are some pictures of the lunch Matt and I had there today. I apologize for the clarity of the pictures. I was using my camera phone and it's hard to hold it steady to get a clear shot. It was a warm day so we were able to dine al fresco.

The homemade limeade sweetened with orange blossom water, pita bread, Baba Ganooj.

Matt's Shawarma sandwich with Lamb. I ordered the same thing but with Chicken. The pink things in the picture are turnip pickles and they are soooo good!

Kanafeh for dessert. It's a creamy custard with shredded phyllo dough, chopped pistachios with an orange blossom syrup poured over the top. It's very unique and probably like nothing you've ever tried before.

ode to spring

2010-03-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

spring, oh spring
where did you go
I thought you'd arrived
but I woke up to snow

hurry, come back
so the flowers can bloom
and bring me out of
this deep winter gloom

you've been such a tease
and I knew that you would
but I'd like to remove
my snow tires for good

I don't need a lot
I'm not asking for much
just to feel once again
spring's warming touch

New pix!

2010-01-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Even though I love the Christmas season, I am glad to get back into the swing of things. I like having a schedule - I'm more productive that way.

Back to Christmas though. We spent Christmas this year in California with Matt's family. They live in the beautiful Monterey Bay area. Matt enjoys the visits because he gets to go back to the home he grew up in. It conjures up a lot of happy memories. I enjoy it not only because it's beautiful, but because we get to visit Matt's family that we don't see too often. This year his brother (Isaac) and his wife (Amie) took us around Monterey to take some pictures. They are professional photographers and do an amazing job - check out their website here. Here are a few of our favorite pictures they took.

Fun candy day with Maggie

2009-12-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

December was a very busy, eventful month for us. My sister and I had a candy/cookie day with our darling niece, Maggie. She is a lot of fun to have around and this time was no different! We made spritz cookies, turtles, homemade snickers bars, chocolate and caramel dipped pretzels and chocolate bark.

Asher was a good boy and played on the floor while we made our goodies. But then he would look at us with this look on his face and it was hard to resist picking him up and playing with him.

Maggie gave in. How could you not when you get this reaction?!

OK, Asher's on the floor again so back to the baking. Here is the chocolate bark we made with the snowflake print on one side, toffee on the other.

The box of goodies.

All wrapped up and tied with a bow! Ready to distribute to family and friends.

Autumn in Utah

2009-10-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

I think Autumn is my favorite time of the year in Utah. The colors this year have been spectacular. Here are some pics from our recent outings.

Big Cottonwood Canyon, at the Lake Blanche trailhead.

On the Lake Blanche trail.

Big Cottonwood Canyon.

With my sister, Christina , at Snowbird Ski Resort.

Some of my faves

2009-10-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels.

Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles.

These are just a few of Maria's favorite things, and I've just discovered a couple of mine.

Greek yogurtdrizzled with honey

I had this in Greece and fell in love with it. Greek yogurt is so much better than the stuff we have here in the US. Luckily, for me, I can buy it at the grocery store down the street and don't have to travel to Greece for this special treat (although I wouldn't mind going back to Greece...).

There are a few brands you can buy, but I especially like the FAGE brand. You should try it sometime. It's delicious and nutritious!

Another favorite thing I just discovered last night is this recipe for Maple Pecan Shortbread. So simple, yet so good. Check out the recipe here: http://prudencepennywise.blogspot.com/2009/10/poes-raven-and-maple-pecan-shortbread.html. This website also has a lot of other great recipes.

A few pictures from our trip.

2009-10-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

I have been trying all day to figure out how to create a slideshow with Flickr. Well I managed to create the slideshow but now I can't figure out how to add it to the blog. After trying for a few hours, I give up. So here are a few pictures from our recent trip. We went to Greece and Italy but these are just Greece pictures. I'll keep working on Flickr.

We learned some interesting things about my grandpa and possibly the reason he came to America and never returned. It's too long to write here, but I'll just let you know it is a classic Greek tragedy. We also found out that our last name "Kargis" is actually "Kartzis". That's probably why it was so hard to find any information on our relatives.

Donkey ride to the Acropolis in Lindos, on the island of Rhodes.

The Mediterranean Sea where Matt and I went for a swim. This picture was taken from the Lindos Acropolis.

Surely every picture you've seen of the Parthenon doesn't include scaffolding or tourists. We weren't able to avoid either. It was so sunny that day...hence the squinting.

The Temple of Apollo in the city of Ancient Corinth. It was pretty cool to be in a place referenced in the Bible.

Just a few of the cousins we met in Vourvoura.

I took this walking back up the road to our hotel in Vourvoura. I loved this view of the church and had to take a picture. This is the small Greek village of Vourvoura where my grandpa Kargis is from.

The trip of a lifetime.

2009-09-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

Last week Matt and I returned from the trip of a lifetime. We went to Greece and Italy. The main purpose of this trip was to visit Vourvoura, the small Greek village where my grandpa is from. It was an amazing experience to meet relatives that we only found out about 4 months ago. We felt an instant connection with these people and formed bonds that we hope will last forever. Some of the other places we visited in Greece: Ancient Corinth, Sparta, Caves of Diros, Nafplion, Athens, and the beautiful island of Rhodes. In Italy we visited Rome. I'll post pictures soon!

Farewell to the fungus phalange

2009-08-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Woo Hoo! Matt had his cast removed last Thursday. He was so glad to get rid of it.......and so was I. Think about it. It's summer. It's hot. He works hard all day. He exercises a lot. Catch my drift? His hand is still a little stiff, but he'll be back to normal really soon. He is really excited to go fishing today and to start mountain biking again.

Hikes, hikes and more hikes.

2009-07-17T14:35:00.001-07:00

This is kind of a long post, but hopefully you'll enjoy the photos.

Since Matt's hand is in a cast for a few more weeks, we haven't been able to do any mountain biking. Yep, we're pretty sad about that but we're doing a lot of hiking instead. Here are some pictures from some of our recent hikes.

On the trail to Red Pine Lake, Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This was on the trail to Lamb's Canyon via Millcreek Canyon. You can see how the greenery is taking over the trail. I'm surprised we didn't awaken a sleeping moose!

On the Mt Olympus trail. This was actually taken in May before Matt broke his hand. The views from up here are amazing!

Coby and Asher at Donut Falls. This was Asher's first hike.

Christina and Asher at Donut Falls.

Preston, Asher, Dane and Justin.

Dane and Preston on the Silver Lake trail. I love this picture!

Our perfect (almost) 4th of July.

2009-07-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Normally Matt and I spend the 4th of July in Jackson Hole. It's been a tradition of ours since we were married. Both of us used to work in the Grand Teton National Park and so we enjoy going back there every year. This year we decided not to so we could save our money for our Italy and Greece trip coming up. So we thought the perfect way to spend the 4th of July in Utah would be to go mountain biking. We started the day at the annual Brighton Breakfast at Brighton ski resort. After filling our bellies with yummy carbs and proteins we hit the Wasatch Crest trail at the top of Guardsmans pass. We love the crest trail and haven't been able to ride it yet this year due to the insane amount of rain we've received. The timing was perfect. The snow has melted. The rain has stopped (for the time being). Matt just got over the swine flu. Finally our chance was here. The part of the crest trail we planned on riding is about 14 miles. About 5 miles into the ride, Matt wrecked. He was making a turn and his bike slid out from underneath him causing him to land with all of his body weight on his right hand. He was in a lot of pain, but he had no choice but to finish the rest of the 8 miles. Not only did he have to finish the 8 miles on the trail, but he had to ride another 10 miles on the road. When we arrived at home I brought him to the ER for an x-ray and some painkillers. Sure enough, he broke his hand. What a way to spend the 4th of July. I think next year we'll stick to tradition and head up to Jackson Hole!

Pointing to the pain scale.

His temporary cast.

Back to the blog again....

2009-05-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay. I realize it has been a while since I posted anything on our blog. It's because I have been caught up in the Facebook craze! Actually it's probably because our lives haven't changed too much and nothing all that exciting has happened for a while (except for the birth of our newest nephew, Asher, who is adorable by the way). I wonder, how does everybody come up with ideas to blog about? I think of things to write about but they sound uneventful in my mind, yet I enjoy reading the day-to-day happenings of everybody else. Are we just boring people? What sort of blog topics do you like to read about?

Slumber Party with the nieces!

2009-01-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

My sister, Christina, and I decided to start the year off with a bang! We had a slumber party with our two nieces, Maggie and Emma. We planned some fun activities and had a good time. Because Christina is 6 months pregnant, I took the girls ice skating by myself. It was Maggie's 3rd time and the first for Emma.

Once Maggie hit the ice, she took off like a pro! She was much better than me.

Emma was a little hesitant at first, but once Maggie and I held her hands and helped her a long, she started to have a great time.

After ice skating, we went to Christina's house for tacos. After dinner the four of us went bowling. I took the lead with a score of 161! I don't know if that's good or bad, but it looked good to me.

After bowling we had mixed berry pie and ice cream, played Mario Cart on Wii, and watched the Princess Bride. After breakfast the next day, we watched Penelope (really cute movie!) and then went to the mall to do a little shopping. What a fun couple of days with the Kargis girls!!

So many things to be thankful for

2008-11-26T13:01:00.000-08:00

As I comtemplate the Thanksgiving holiday this week, there are so many things I am thankful for. I am thankful to live in a free country. I am thankful that Matt and I are both healthy. I am thankful that we both have jobs. I am thankful for clothing, food, and shelter.

But most importantly, I am glad that I did not graduate from high school in 1964; or Matt in 1976. Otherwise, we might have looked something like this.

Moab

2008-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Matt and I decided to take a short trip to Moab to enjoy the last of the nice weather. It was a fun, but very odd trip. I don't what it is about the off- season there, but it seems to bring out all the weirdos. We were taking down our tent and packing up the car when some crazy hippie came over and started yelling at us. She was mad that we had parked our car next to the Indian petroglyphs and told us we were blocking them for everyone else to see. The place was empty, we were the only campers in the campground and nobody was there to look at the petroglyphs so I didn't understand why she was so mad. I couldn't believe somebody would get that upset over something so small. She went off for a minute accusing us of being idiots, morons, @&#*$%, told us how lazy we were because we didn't park in the other spot 5 feet away from where were were parked, continued calling us some other choice names and then got in her car and sped off. I was dumbfounded! I didn't know what to say so I think I just stood there looking at her with my mouth open. After that, we hurried and finished packing up the car and got out of there. It's the psychos like that who return with a gun! We had a fun trip anyway. Here are a couple pictures of our bike ride on the Amasa Back trail.

This was taken at the end of the trail. As you can see from the background, the view is absolutely amazing.

I rented a full suspension bike for the first time and it sure was nice! I can't believe I've been riding a hard tail for the past 9 years!

Christmas already?

2008-11-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or is the early Christmas music, decorations, and store advertisements bothering anyone else? I was walking through the mall during the latter part of September and noticed advertisements for Christmas all throughout one particular department store. SEPTEMBER! Halloween hadn't even arrived yet and this place was already advertising for Christmas. A week ago, I stopped by Wal-Mart (I actually loathe this store and avoid it like the plague, but it was the only store nearby and I had to quickly grab something). Christmas decorations and music filled the store. I heard the most unpleasant version of Silent Night- I'm sure my ears are permanently damaged.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love Christmas and everything it is about, but there is a time and season for everything. September and October are not the time or season for Christmas. It is a time for raking leaves, carving pumpkins, or simply enjoying a beautiful fall day. It seems that each year the commercial aspect of Christmas begins earlier and earlier. Pretty soon it will be a year-round holiday. Will we forget what Christmas is all about...... or is it already forgotten?

Halloween memories

2008-10-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

With Halloween approaching this week, I have been thinking about some fun childhood memories. As a kid, I thought Halloween was an amazing holiday. You went house to house knocking on doors and people would give you candy. It doesn’t get any better than that! Here are some of my favorites.

1) My favorite costume, and one that I used for a couple years, was a gypsy. My mom had the perfect clothing ensemble and I got to wear some black, knee length, high heeled boots that I thought were so cool.

2) Every year my mom would make clam chowder for dinner. I think she made it in the hopes that it would fill us up (and also keep us warm) so we wouldn’t want to eat all our candy! I don’t like clams so she would always make cream of potato soup for me.

3) After all of us returned home from trick-or-treating, we would lay out our treasures on the floor and the trading would begin. The coveted items were always the candy bars.

4) One year when I was in high school, my brother, Justin, dressed up in some sort of woolly mammoth costume. It was big, hairy, and very scary. His goal was to quietly sit at the bottom of the porch steps and when the trick-or-treaters would approach the house, he would yell “ROAR” and all the kids would run away screaming. Yes, I know it’s mean, but it was pretty funny to watch. Because the costume was hairy, he couldn’t see out of it very well. My assignment was to stay inside and keep a watch out. When I saw trick-or-treaters coming to our house, I would run outside and let him know so he could be prepared. As I leaned over the porch railing to let him know someone was coming, I lost my footing and did a front flip into the bushes below. I don’t know what startled the kids the most; my brother in the costume, or me landing in the bushes. I was sore for about a week.

Who says Halloween is only for kids?

1) When I worked in the Missionary Travel department for the church, we would have a cubicle carnival every Halloween. We weren’t allowed to dress up, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. Those participating would decorate their cubicles and have a fun game. The bean bag toss and cupcake walk are some favorites that come to mind. One person decided to have a game that involved eating donuts that were hung from above. It was all fun and games until a General Authority walked by and saw a donut hanging on a string from the ceiling. That quickly put an end to the annual cubicle carnival.

2) Two years ago I was invited to a Halloween Party at the Hotel Monaco in Salt Lake City. The hotel is known for throwing fabulous parties so I really wanted to go. Matt didn’t want to join me so I recruited my sister, Christina. We decided to dress up as cavewomen. We wrapped ourselves in brown fabric, put dark brown foundation all over our bodies, ratted our hair so big it must have been in another zip code, put twigs and pine cones in our hair, and used about 2 cans of hairspray to make it all stay put. Our costumes were a huge hit! Everyone wanted a picture of the cavewomen so before each photo, we would make sure to put some chocolate on our teeth to make it look like a few were missing. It was such a fun night. It wasn’t so fun washing the makeup off and trying to comb through my hair afterwards.

3) Matt and I visited Salem, Massachusetts a week before Halloween in 2005. The town has an annual event called Haunted Happenings (http://www.hauntedhappenings.org). There are all sorts of fun and spooky activities that take place during the month leading up to Halloween. Learning about the Salem Witch Trials at the Salem Witch Museum was particularly interesting.

Fall is in the air

2008-10-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

The hunter's moon waxes full. Winter awaits like a thief at the gate. As the sun sinks lower, how do we spend the final days of Indian summer? Do we relax on barcaloungers sipping tea and eating crumpets? NO! We ride sweet Wasatch single track.

Ahhh fall...... a perfect time to get out and slay the proverbial dragon.

Millcreek Pipeline Trail

Park City Mid Mountain Trail